


Atonement

by Lapsed_Scholar



Category: The X-Files
Genre: "Platonic", (or at least a hopeful ending), Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Cancer Arc, F/M, Friendship/Love, Hurt/Comfort, Platonic Cuddling, Season/Series 04, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Yom Kippur | Atonement Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-23
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:21:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26618884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lapsed_Scholar/pseuds/Lapsed_Scholar
Summary: The men were greatly terrified, and they asked him, “What have you done?” And when the men learned that he was fleeing from the services of the LORD—for so he told them—they said to him, “What must we do to you to make the sea calm around us?” For the sea was growing more and more stormy. He answered “Heave me overboard, and the sea will calm down for you; for I know this terrible storm came upon you on my account.”-Jonah 1: 10-12“This is my commandment: love one another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”-John 15: 12-13
Relationships: Fox Mulder & Dana Scully, Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Comments: 6
Kudos: 25





	Atonement

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to @peacenik0 and @alienqueequeg for the beta and without whom this story would contain far more synonyms for facial tissues and far less meaningful conflict.

The righteous man perishes,  
And no one considers;  
Pious men are taken away,  
And no one gives thought  
That because of evil  
The righteous was taken away.  
Yet he shall come to peace,  
He shall have rest on his couch  
Who walked straightforward.  
But as for you, come closer...

-Isaiah 57: 1-3

_September 23, 1996_

He’d called her yesterday late in the afternoon, breezy. “Oh, hey, Scully—I just wanted you to know that I’m not going to be in tomorrow; the autumnal equinox is a time of especially heightened paranormal activity, and there’s some rumors I want to check into. I don’t imagine I’ll get back before tomorrow evening, so you’ll have the office to yourself. I know Skinner’s on us about those expense reports, but I think I’ve got a decent start on my end, and anything you need to wrap it up should be in the top drawer of my desk. I’ve gotta go—I’ll fill you in later!”

She’d opened her mouth to answer, to at least say _something_ , but he’d hung up before she got the chance, and she was left staring at her wireless phone receiver without getting a single word in edgewise. Why had he even bothered? He clearly didn’t need her input.

It had been a little earlier than usual for him: It wasn’t the dead of night, and the sun had still been visible above the horizon. But otherwise? Just another Sunday phone call, with a breathless presumption that he hasn’t exhibited since her diagnosis (since she went to Philadelphia). She’d thought he’d maybe learned his lesson then... _Learned his lesson?_ The thought startles her and carries ugly implications that she’d rather not examine, so she resolutely pushes it away, the way she always does with truths she’s not yet ready to face.

She sits now in their shared office, feeling dismissed and neglected in a way that maybe isn’t entirely her right. _Keep the office, Scully; finish the reports; I’m not going to share with you what I find worth looking into; don’t ask me questions: just pick everything up after me._

He’s just taking a day off, she reminds herself as she’s sorting through the receipts, which he’s left in uncommonly orderly piles. He has every right to do that. After the fit he threw last time he was required to take a vacation, maybe it’s a good thing that he’s behaving more like a normal person. They’re just coworkers, and he isn’t asking her to do anything other than her job. Wasn’t that what Philadelphia was about? That he had no claim on her personal life?

He doesn’t call her, and he also doesn’t answer his phone. She calls him four or five times over the course of the day, but she can’t get any response from him at all. That worries her. She hopes he’s not doing something stupid and dangerous. Even on her trip to Philadelphia, he would always answer his phone, even if it was just to ensure she was doing her pointless errands. She was the one who had stopped answering.

It’s just that... he’s been so present recently. And even through all the hurt and anger and confusion, he’s remained her most loyal and dependable friend. Forced at last to face the inevitable, she hadn’t been able to think of a single other person to call to meet her at the oncology department, to share the news of her death.

“Anything, Scully. Say the word,” he had whispered to her as she cried in his arms. (She could once remember all the times she had cried in his arms.)

It wasn’t an idle offer. She’d laid on him the duty of telling her mother, and he’d done it without hesitation. He takes her to appointments on the rare occasion that she can bring herself to ask him. He’s started carrying a handkerchief, though she knows he never used to, and passes it to her without a word. He doesn’t treat her as if she’s dying, but she’s seen the way he looks at her when he thinks she can’t see him: a depth of tenderness and sorrow that can lead only to one rational conclusion.

They’re not just coworkers, and they both know it. Neither knows what to do with that knowledge.

As the day wears on, her annoyance gradually evolves into hurt, until she makes the trek up to Skinner’s office to deliver the requested reports. Before she can think better of it, she asks their boss, “Did Agent Mulder happen to mention why he took off work today?”

Skinner lowers his eyebrows as he studies her through his glasses. “He said it was a religious observance. He didn’t share that with you?”

The barely-concealed surprise in Skinner’s voice stings. She’s not sure if she’s offended or pleased by the presumption that Mulder would tell her of his whereabouts, and she’s suddenly self-conscious about the type of things that Skinner assumes that they share. She feels an urgent desire to get out of here and back to her empty office.

“Not... in so many words, no. I’d, um, better get back to work.”

The words _religious observance_ burn her on the way back to the basement, and her hurt transfigures back into anger. He’s calling his stupid paranormal rumors _religious_. Like his stupid trip to Graceland was _spiritual_. He doesn’t understand the actual meaning of those words, sneers at her Catholicism, but throws them around carelessly on things that don’t actually merit them. It’s a game to him, a source of smug amusement that he can play at work.

It’s with a combination of stinging anger, and a dull, aching suspicion that she’s been forsaken that she finishes the day and heads wearily back to her apartment. It’s still light enough when she gets home that she doesn’t even bother to turn on the lights, just toes her shoes off by the door and heads to her sofa.

She tries his number one more time on her cell, then, when she gets his answering machine once again, she tosses her phone across the room, where she figures she can always pick it up later. There are no witnesses to her pique. Living alone has its benefits.

She’s tired—the day has worn her out physically and emotionally for reasons she’s unwilling to admit, even to herself. Going to bed seems like it would be admitting defeat, so she allows herself to drift off on her sofa.

* * *

She wakes with a start, to a hand on her cheek. Her eyes fly open to find Mulder’s face over hers, his eyes frantically searching her for some feared or imagined injury.

“Oh God, Scully—are you OK?” his voice sounds hoarse, distraught. She’s still disoriented from waking up, and she can’t figure out why he’s even here, much less why he looks so frightened.

She nods wordlessly (and, of course, the truth hangs over them: She is dying, but that wound is invisible) and continues to stare at him in confusion. He spends a few more seconds anxiously looking her over before his eyes roll back in his head, the color drains from his face, and he collapses in a dead faint.

It takes her another moment for her groggy brain to catch up, to reconcile his sudden appearance in her apartment with his absence all day. Mulder has always had a talent for the late and dramatic entrance. She pulls herself ruefully off of her sofa to kneel at his side on the floor.

His skin is sweaty and clammy; pulse is elevated, but breathing is steady. She can’t detect any wounds, but she runs her fingers through his dark hair just to be sure, then shifts him so that he’s lying supine. She’s proceeding through basic first aid, as she’s done for him so many times: now loosen restrictive clothing. She unknots his tie and opens his collar, though at his waist she finds that he’s not wearing a belt. 

“What have you been into, Mulder?” she murmurs, resists the urge to stroke his hair again, and darts across the room to pick up some of her old medical textbooks to elevate his legs.

Back near his head again, she takes his hand, squeezes his fingers, and addresses him clearly. “Mulder? Mulder, can you hear me?”

His hand twitches in hers, and his eyelids flutter in response to her words. She sees him pass through different stages of comprehension, trying to figure out where he is, why he’s there. She can pinpoint the moment that he remembers when he jerks and looks around for her, relaxing a little when he sees her.

“Mmmm. Scully. I’m sorry... I... I didn’t mean to burden you like this. I’m sorry I missed your calls; are you OK?” 

“ _I’m_ OK.” She wants to be irritated; he’s the one who just showed up and passed out on her floor. But his allusion to all the calls she had made to him twinges at her conscience. She settles for, “Mulder, what did you do to yourself this time?”

“Nothing at all, Doc.” His head lolls on his neck in a way that belies his answer, and his voice is a sluggish mumble. She taps at his fingers in her grasp, which gets him to focus a bit more, and his eyes slide open to regard her blearily.

“If you really don’t know what’s going on with you, we’re going to need to get you to a hospital for evaluation,” she informs him. It’s not so much a threat, she tells herself, as it is the most rational course of action. 

Either way, it has the desired effect. Mulder frowns and sighs and rolls his head in a way that would probably be a fidget if he were capable of higher coordination. “Uhhh, maybe… didn’t eat very much.”

Hypoglycemia, then. All right, they can treat this here. She tells herself that he’s still going to the hospital if she finds out he’s deceiving her. She moves into the kitchen to pour a mug of orange juice, figures that the handle will let him keep a better grip on it.

“Here, let’s get you sitting up a bit.” Back by her sofa, she grabs a couple of throw pillows and helps him maneuver his shoulders on top of them, and then presses the mug into his hands. “Sip that slowly. You don’t want to take too much at once.”

“Hmm, that’s what they say, anyway.” He’s a little too out of it still to make the innuendo stick, but she gifts him the eye roll.

They’re quiet for a few liminal minutes, not in the easy manner of one of their habitually companionable silences, but not quite hostile. She gets up to close her apartment door that he’d left standing open with his keys still in the knob, and tries to nonchalantly retrieve her phone on the way back over. It has two missed calls, both from him, both a little after 7:00. It’s 7:30 now, and it’s dark beyond her curtains. She switches on a lamp.

Returning to sit on her coffee table, she watches him. He sips at the mug and studiously doesn’t look at her, and she feels her irritation rise with his evasiveness. It reminds her that he’d spent most of today ignoring her too. She waits, though, until there’s more strength in his grip and in his posture to press him. “Mulder... where were you today?”

He glances at her askance. “I told you, um. The, uh, autumnal equinox is… is an especially high activity time for Sasquatch sightings in the Appalachian foothills of Pennsylvania, and so I went to go check it out. I spent all day looking, visited all the most recent hotspots, even talked to a few locals. But, um, you know, I didn’t find very much. Maybe I’ll have more luck next time.”

There is a cold feeling creeping up the back of her neck and into her stomach while he’s spinning this tale. No, he hadn’t told her this when he’d called her yesterday; he's giving her more detail now, but it actually doesn’t matter what he says at all. He’s _lying_ to her. He’s sitting there in a _suit_ , a light, summer suit that’s inappropriate to both the season and the weather, and he’s wearing a _white shirt_ , and he is completely unstained by any sort of residue from the Appalachian foothills. Nothing is rumpled, the crease in his pants is still sharp, and except for the odd, incongruous fact that he’s wearing running shoes, he looks far more well-kempt than he does at the end of a day in their office, much less a day spent in the field hunting monsters.

Maybe he had actually been meeting a source that he didn’t want to share with her (she’d blown off his last source in spectacular fashion after all). Maybe his recent gentle attentiveness is simply the result of pity. Maybe he was on a date, with a warm, receptive woman with years of life ahead of her and— _No. Stop. You have no right to do this, Dana_. She’s mortified to find herself near tears.

“What the fuck, Mulder?” she hisses out, and, oh, he’s looking at her now, startled, and that only makes everything worse. “Where _were_ you today?! You just blow me off all day, only to burst into my apartment, pass out on my floor, and _lie_ to me.” He takes a breath and opens his mouth, but she barrels over him, keeps going before she can lose her nerve, “Tell me the truth, Mulder. You owe me that much.”

Guilt flashes in his eyes and pulls at his mouth, and she wonders for a brief second whether or not she actually _wants_ to know this truth that she’s demanded of him.

He sighs and looks away from her again, staring off at nothing, toward her door. His voice is a quiet murmur when he speaks, and the almost-wistful tone is jarring following her outburst. “Do you know the story of the Days of Awe, Scully? The Jewish High Holy days?”

Something in her twists and then deflates. This is _very_ different from any of her expectations, and she suddenly doesn’t know how to react. “I didn’t realize you were—”

“I’m not. Not really. I, um. It’s my family, my mother’s parents, they... but it’s not really something I share.” He glances over at her just barely before nodding once and looking down into the mug.

“Anyway, the tradition goes that on the new year, on _Rosh Hashanah,_ the Book of Life is opened, and the names of the righteous are recorded in it. The wicked are blotted from it, fated to die. The rest of us... well, we get from _Rosh Hashanah_ ten days until _Yom Kippur_ when the Book closes. And those are the Days of Awe. You’re supposed to, um, make amends to the people that you’ve wronged, practice repentance, prayer, and charity; do what you can, I guess, to convince God not to blot you out.”

The Book of Life—oh _no_ , Mulder, no; she knows all too well why this story speaks to him now—why he’d spend all day dedicated to a half-remembered ritual from his childhood, petitioning a God he doesn’t believe in to add a name to the Book of Life. She knows all too well that the name he’s been petitioning for isn’t his own.

“And then on _Yom Kippur_ , you spend all day in temple, in atonement. And in fasting,” he gestures with the mug. “I haven’t actually been inside a synagogue in... twenty-five years maybe? But _Yom Kippur_ is the service you attend if you’re even marginally Jewish. Like Easter and Christmas for lapsed Catholics, or so I hear. There’s a Reform temple over on Wisconsin Avenue that isn’t too picky about its attendees.”

Her conscience prickles—when was the last time she’d actually been to Mass?—but she doesn’t want to let him off that easily for collapsing on her floor.

“Mulder, a fast like that requires physiological preparation; adherents of religions that fast regularly follow a careful regimen, and you aren’t supposed to do it if it will damage your health.”

He looks up at her with a hint of sheepish guilt. “Yeah, well, I told you that it’s been twenty-five years. Kids don’t fast. I haven’t exactly kept up with my religious education.”

She presses her lips together. He’s playing this off as his own ignorance and neglect, but she’s willing to bet that he’d rather make it harder on himself than easier. The depth of his masochistic streak scares her sometimes.

He sighs and looks into the mug again. It’s empty now. “Most people eat a big, celebratory meal afterward with their loved ones, break the fast that way, but, well.” He looks back up at her. “I—I was going to eat and drink, myself, I promise. But then when I got out, uh, I saw all your calls, and you weren’t picking up... I didn’t have my car... the quickest way for me to get here was just to run.”

“You _ran_ to my apartment from Wisconsin Avenue following a daylong fast?”

“You scared the shit outta me, Scully.”

She remembers other calls she’d made him that had gone unanswered, the one where she’d begged him to save her when Duane Barry had broken in, and she can understand his fear. “I guess I got scared myself when I couldn’t reach you. I wasn’t sure what you’d gotten yourself into.”

Mulder smirks a little. “Nothing terribly strenuous. Just _Kol Nidrei_ , and all that sort of thing.” She doesn’t recognize the words, nor the tune that he sings them to, but she finds herself suddenly wanting to know. She can’t quite bring herself to ask him.

 _[Kol Nidrei_ —“All Vows”—begins _Yom Kippur_ services with a nullification of the forthcoming year’s unfulfilled vows, the vows made under duress. It had offered comfort to Mulder’s ancestors when faced with conversion made under threat of violence. As for him, he expects to need it this year. What better example of a vow made under duress than Scully demanding from her deathbed that he go on without her?]

But if she can’t ask after the liturgy, she can press him on his health. “And what would your rabbi say if I told him you didn’t prepare yourself to fast, and you ran all the way here to me immediately afterward, pushing your body to the point of physical collapse?”

“She probably wouldn’t be amused. But mostly because she’s not my rabbi and she doesn’t know me from Adam.” He gives the name a slight Hebrew inflection. She merely arches her eyebrow at him in a challenge to elaborate.

He sighs, gives in. “OK, OK. Judging solely from the impression I got of her today, she wouldn’t be angry, just disappointed, and probably talk to me about how I wasn’t supposed to hurt myself like this, and I brought no glory to God with this sort of debasement.” He casts her a sullen look. “I don’t want to hear it from you, Little Miss My-Religion-Assigns-People-Penance.”

“I don’t know, Mulder. I think having a priest assign you penance could be good for you.”

“Kind of kinky of you, Scully.”

She rolls her eyes at him. His penchant for innuendo is back, at least. “The point is, Mulder, that you’re always assigning _yourself_ penance, and it’s always too harsh: tasks and conditions you can never hope to fulfill. And even if you finally did meet your own expectations, would you consider yourself absolved? Or would you simply add more requirements?”

He looks away with a snort, but the nonanswer lets her know that she’s made her point. He’s sitting upright now under his own power, and makes an effort to gather his legs under him to get up from the floor. She guides his arm, and they get him sitting on her sofa. He looks down at his shirt, picks at the fabric, and smiles self-deprecatingly.

“I tried to dress the part, at least. The light colors, white is for purity. No leather. I don’t, uh, have any fake leather dress shoes. You could tell who was a regular because they all looked natural. Still dressed appropriately, but not so obviously. Those of us dressed like this—fully into the theme? We were clearly compensating for something.

“The thing is, though... it’s not enough.” His laugh is tinged with bitterness. “I... I didn’t do it right. It’s... _Yom Kippur_ is for atoning for sins toward God. The rabbi was actually obnoxiously stringent on that point. Sins against other people... you have to atone with that person first, and I...

“You’re my best friend, Scully. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had, and I l—you mean so much to me. You mean the world to me. And you probably can’t even tell. I’ve taken you for granted. I’ve been bossy and domineering. I’ve been selfish and myopic. I wish you would confide in me, but I have to confess that I probably haven’t been listening. I haven’t thought about what you would want from your life or need from me. I’m sorry. I don’t know how well I can make it up to you or, or fix it, but I want you to know that I’ll try.”

“Mulder.” She feels tears in her own eyes, and she leans forward from her perch on the coffee table to touch his face. He flinches at first but then relaxes fractionally into the caress. He looks up and holds her gaze for the first time since he’d shown up so suddenly in her apartment. She doesn’t know what to say—anything she could say seems inadequate. “You—you’ve been such a source of strength for me. These, um. I know how much you’re doing, how much you’ve been trying to do, even though I also know you’re trying to hide it. I mean, I called _you_ , Mulder, all those weeks ago...” She can’t continue; it suddenly feels like too much; she feels exposed, like breaking down in tears before him would be shameful.

She looks into his familiar eyes, and somehow, through that wordless choreography that they perform so well, she leans forward and he leans back until they’re both on her sofa, with him leaning against the back of it and her sitting sideways in his lap. With her head resting on his chest, she can hear the hitches in his breathing, can hear him trying to get a handle on his own emotions, and wonders at the shame she still feels in her own tears. This is the kind of embrace that they both understand on a deep, fundamental level, and which they’ll both pretend never happened.

The truth of Philadelphia (and it feels odd that she has chosen to face it now, from her position in his arms, but it’s the safest she’s felt in months) is that she did have every right to go out and get laid, even though she knew it would hurt him. The ugliest truth, though, is that hurting him was a large part of the appeal. And through his patronizing, condescending anger in the aftermath, she could see him struggle to restrain the feelings he knew he had no right to have. And that struggle was satisfying in that moment; it felt like retribution.

But... retribution for what? In a sense, she had told him the truth. It wasn’t about him. It was about her feeling like she’d lost control over her own life, as though she’d given him her loyalty and received nothing in return. She knows who he is, though, and who he can’t be. He’s never been deceitful about any of that, and she’d chosen her path anyway. She knows what his priorities are.

And yet... She thinks of him holding her in the hospital, calling her mother, running himself ragged, pursuing any possible means of obtaining an impossible cure. Of fasting and sitting in a worship service all day: the avowed, committed atheist, willing to try absolutely anything that he thought might help, however slim the hope.

Maybe she doesn’t know his priorities as well as she thought she did. Maybe she doesn’t want to face her own.

She thinks about going to Confession again. In the meantime, she closes her eyes and blesses them both. May God give you pardon and peace: _I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit._

She pulls away from his chest and sits up, looks into his eyes again. He still looks tired and worn, but his eyes are clear and hold their customary affection. He offers her a whisper of a smile. It’s disconcerting how natural she feels sitting in his lap like this.

He mentioned breaking the fast with loved ones? This she can do.

“So, Mulder. You still need to eat something.” She glances down and bites her lip. “I know it’s not exactly a celebratory feast with your family, but... Do you want to stay and have dinner with me? I don’t have much, but there’s some leftover frozen lasagna and some bread.”

Watching the happiness that spreads across his face, she can still feel the warmth and promise of life.

For their sinful greed I was angry;  
I struck them and turned away in My wrath.  
Though stubborn, they follow the way of their hearts,  
I note how they fare and will heal them:  
I will guide them and mete out solace to them,  
And to the mourners among them  
heartening, comforting words: It shall be well,  
Well with the far and the near—said the LORD—  
And I will heal them.

-Isaiah 57: 17-19

**Author's Note:**

> Isaiah and Jonah are customary texts for the Yom Kippur service. The version here is from the 1985 JPS version of the Tanakh, a common translation for a Reform service. The selection from John is from the New American Bible (Revised Edition) from 1986, which is the translation used in English language Mass.


End file.
